Member Questions

Have the interviews with Sarah Palin changed your mind (one way or the other) about her readiness to be president?”

11 replies so far...

Good job Frenchmama......I feel the exact same way..... And I still haven't changed my mind about her.
check this out Gov. Sarah Palin, by John McCain's estimation, "knows more about energy than probably anyone in the United States of America," then why is she getting such basic facts about our nation's energy production wrong?

At a townhall event in Wisconsin on Thursday, Palin was asked by a concerned questioner whether it was true that the United States was shipping 75 percent of its Alaskan oil overseas. She responded by proclaiming it impossible, since Congress had put strict bans on the amount of oil and gas that America could export.

Not so. As the Associated Press reported:

No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.
And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.

The Alaska ban has never been reinstated.

Unfortunately, for Palin, this was not merely an inconsequential misstatement but rather another in a series of errors when it comes to discussing what is supposed to be her policy strength. For a while on the trail, the Alaska Governor was fond of declaring that her job - as head of state - "has been to oversee nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of oil and gas."

That too was incorrect. As the Washington Post's Fact Checker noted:

Alaska is the ninth largest energy supplier in the United States, accounting for a modest 3.5 percent share of the nation's total energy production...
... After the non-partisan Factcheck.org pointed out Palin's error in her interview with Gibson, the Alaska governor revised her claim somewhat, limiting it to oil and gas. But data compiled by the Energy Information Administration contradict her claim that she oversees "nearly 20 percent" of oil and gas production in the country. According to authoritative EIA data, Alaska accounted for just 7.4 percent of total U.S. oil and gas production in 2005.

One thing Palin did get right was her assertion that the U.S. does not ship three-quarters of its Alaska-drilled oil to other countries. The amount, in actuality, is quite minimal (523 million barrels of petroleum product), especially compared with the amount that the country imports (roughly 4 billion barrels).
AND THIS:

Palin’s Administration issues permits to shoot wolves from low-flying aircraft or chase them to exhaustion and kill them at point-blank range. [2] To encourage more killing, she even proposed a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf.
David Brooks spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."

In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:
David Brooks spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."

In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices.........interesting stuff.

Wow..I just read the article that mamnjama posted about Sarah Palin. How powerful and true...that would
be the only way for her to save face. Just doubt she would even think about doing this, It would take a
very big person...one very secure in themselves. But we can still dream,huh!

Nope. I just feel insulted that the MCCain's camp would think that just because she is a MOM with 5 kids, a pregnant teen and a baby with Down Syndrome, I would automatically feel a "connection" and vote for her.
I read that she went back to work 3 days after having her baby boy. I find that PATHETIC. You are supposed to be proud of that Sarah! Putting your work ahead of your child. This is so sad. I was insulted by Palin in her VP debate, referring to "hockey mom", and "moms on the soccier field' etc...this is insulting. Do you really think women are so dumb?? she is dangerous. she is a liar. she has no experience on foreign affairs. I cannot imagine her being our next VP. I will not vote based on gender, color, age, whether the candidates are handsome/pretty/likeable/regular people like me. I read Obama and McCain's plans, I educate myself, I don't give a damn if one was a prisoner of war and the other one was raised on foodstamps. What everyone should care about it: what are their policies? what are their plans and do you believe this is the right thing for the country. That's what matters! not that you are a MOM or that you went to war. I don't even care if you're married or cheated on your wife. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO FOR THIS COUNTRY.
I encourage everyone to go on the candidates' websites and read the plans, understand them and make their decision that way. Forget about Palin and her hairdo.

She scares me more that ever. Help us all if she and McCain get elected. And the more "we" get to know her the more "we" are convinced she is not the right person for the job. Our country is in bad enough shape now...I'd hate to see what would happen if they ever got elected. And if it does happen it will happen because people still judge people by the color of their skin. How sad.

The interview she did with Katie Couric solidified my view of her. It's not gender I have a problem with; it's substance, ability, knowledge, and ability to handle herself in a situation. With all the people on McCain's staff to educate, coach, and ready this person for the national stage, her interview with Couric totally shows she has NO BUSINESS being the possible VP. I disagreed initially sole on a political view, but after seeing her and watching her total ignornance and inability to handle herself, I am totally convinced that she was picked simply because she was female and not because she was the best qualified. My God, I'm not a conservative by any means, but for the love of Pete - why didn't they look to Elizabeth Dole of NC? She's a Senator, former head of the Red Cross, and WAY more qualified than this piece of work.

I'm more convinced now that McCain's camp thinks that we'll blindly follow simply because she's a woman.

I just read this ( http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDZiMDhjYTU1NmI5Y2MwZjg2MWNiMWMyYTUxZDkwNTE= ) about Sarah Palin in a very conservative publication, and I'm wondering if anyone else is changing their mind about McCain's VP pick? I have not changed my mind...I still don't think that she's the right person to possibly be president of the US, and I don't agree with her stances on policy either...but just wanted to see if it's just the media changing their minds or regular folks too.